Everything I'm Not One Direction Fiction
by TheConverseKid
Summary: Evy had always stood in the shadow of her twin sister, Hayley. She'd become all but invisible. Niall is the only one who understands her pain. Niall Horan/OC. WARNING: CONTAINS SELF HARM. Also, I don't own One Direction.


Everything I'm Not

The doorbell rang. Once, twice, three times. Yanking out her headphones and grumbling, Evy sat up from her position on the couch where she had been reading and strode to the door. Clearly, Hayley was too busy doing her make-up or texting people to answer the door. Still muttering to herself, she threw open the door, before letting out a small gasp of surprise.

On her doorstep stood two fifths of One Direction – Harry Styles and Niall Horan.

Evy didn't consider herself a fan girl, but she couldn't deny she wasn't a fan. They had the type of music that made you feel happy on bad days. Plus, they were all gorgeous with beautiful voices. What wasn't to like?

What made her even more shocked, however, was when her non-identical twin sister, Hayley, strode down the stairs wearing, even by Hayley's standards, less clothing then usual, and threw her arms around Harry, crowing "Harry, babe! You're early! Ok, let's go."

Evy was almost over her shock as Hayley strode past her, clinging on Harry's arm, when Niall choose to speak, stunning her all over again.

"Who's this gorgeous girl? Is she coming with us?"

"No!" cried Hayley quickly, giving Evy a significant look. "She's got a lot of, um, studying for that journalism exam coming up, right Eve?"

"Um, right, yeah," stammered Evy, wondering why she was even covering for her sister. "I'll never get through Uni if I don't study, right?" She gave a nervous laugh.

"Right, see, there you go Niall. See ya Eve!" called Hayley, slamming the door quickly, leaving Evy staring at the wood blankly, alone with her thoughts.

Evy had no idea why she always covered for her twin. Since the age of 15 when her twin had first discovered the opposite sex, Hayley had treated her as completely irrelevant, only useful for lying to their parents about where she was and whom she was with. Now they were 19, and Evy was starting to believe how irrelevant she was. She had friends, sure, but she'd only had one real boyfriend on her life. They'd been so great together, so perfect for each other. Until he met Hayley and fell madly in love with her. When he broke up with Evy, he'd even said to her "I choose the wrong twin." Then Hayley played him for two weeks and dumped him too. It was then that Evy cut herself off from guys in general.

She felt completely pathetic, all the time. How Hayley had met One Direction, she had no idea. But if Evy had been in the same position, she knew she wouldn't have somehow got Harry Styles and Niall Horan to turn up at her house. Hayley had the beauty, the charm, even the brains. Hayley was studying at University to become a Doctor. Evy was studying to become a journalist, because the only thing she was good at was writing. And even with her skill in writing, she was barely scraping by in the class. She was simply too easily distracted. She wanted to write stories and songs, not about natural disasters. But she had no ideas. She was useless at everything she did, and this realization brought tears streaming down her face.

It was times like this when her problems became too much too handle, and she had to make the pain go elsewhere. Evy had never told anyone, but she was a frequent self-harmer. It took her mind of her mental anguish of always being second best and made that pain more physical and easier to control and understand. They dozens of scars on her wrists were difficult to hide, and yet no one had ever noticed them. Maybe because no one looked at her, she didn't know.

So this was how Evy found herself lying on the floor of the bathroom with blood pouring down her right wrist from numerous gashes. She dropped the razor and wiped her eyes, disgusted with herself as she always did after it. She climbed gingerly to her feet and made her way to the door; glad her parents were on a cruise at the moment, as she hated sneaking around to get the first-aid kit. On her way, she caught a look at herself in the hall mirror.

Even without the blood all over her wrist and clothes, she still looked a mess. Her hair was messy and her bright blue eyes were bloodshot from crying. Though she doubted Hayley would notice anything unusual about her, she knew she'd have to fix her hair and make-up in case Hayley actually got back before Evy went to sleep. Sometimes Hayley didn't come back until the next morning. Evy shook her head and strode away from the mirror, not wanting to look at her reflection anymore.

After she'd cleaned her cuts, wincing as she did so, she inspected the damage. There were 11 cuts haphazardly scattered across her arm, and Evy was shocked with herself. That was a lot more than she normally did, and they looked deeper than usual too. Ashamed, she bandaged her arm carefully then went upstairs and changed out of her bloody clothes and into clean ones, taking care to select a long sleeved shirt as she did so.

Evy then styled her hair carefully, straightening the two long sections at the front that went down to her collarbones and spiking up the short back. She then put on some concealer and smudged on some eyeliner. Happy with that she look normal and as if she hadn't been crying, she headed downstairs and reclined on the couch with her iPod and book, humming and reading and trying to forget what she'd just done.

But as usual, her mind drifted. She found herself looking at the wall and wondering what she wanted to eat when her iPod switched to a new song. It was as if it had sensed her mood – The Veronicas, Everything I'm Not had came on. She always felt particularly close to this song because of her singular past relationship. As the song began, she turned up the volume and slid off the couch and onto the floor. She began to sing to herself.

_Oh no, don't go changing_

_That's what you told me from the start_

_Thought you where something different_

_That's when it all just fell apart_

_Like you're so perfect_

_And I can't measure up_

_Well I'm not perfect_

_Just all messed up_

_I was losing myself to somebody else_

_But now I see_

_I don't want to pretend_

_So this is the end of you and me_

_Cause the girl that you want_

_She was tearing us apart_

_Cause she's everything_

_Everything I'm not_

_It's not like I need somebody_

_Telling me where I should go at night_

_Don't worry you'll find somebody_

_Someone to tell how to live their life_

_Cause you're so perfect_

_And no one measures up_

_Yeah all by yourself_

_And all messed up_

As Evy began to sing the second chorus however she heard a slight cough behind her. She quickly turned, yanking out her headphones as she did so. To her complete surprise and mortification, the whole of One Direction and Hayley were standing behind the couch grinning. Except for Hayley, of course, who was glaring at her angrily.

Liam Payne clapped three times, smiling. "You're really good!" he said cheerfully. Evy gave a tentative smile back feeling slightly bewildered, but before she could respond Hayley cut in.

"Evy," she said, clearly working to keep her voice even. "Kitchen. Now." She then turned, and stalked away.

Groaning and getting to her feet she gave another shy smile at the boy band and walked into the kitchen, closing the door gently behind her and turning to face her doom.

Hayley stood next to the stove. Arms folded and glaring. "Evy," she said. "What the hell did you think you were doing? Were you trying to embarrass me?"

Evy was not in the mood to fight with her sister tonight, so she attempted to go for a peaceful approach. "Sorry sis, I was just singing. I was just gonna go to my room anyway."

"Whatever, just don't come out for the rest of the night. It's bad enough that I'm actually related to you. I honestly have no idea what Jared saw in you in the first place."

Jared. Evy's ex-boyfriend. And just like that, something inside Evy snapped and she found herself yelling.

"Ok. I'm not pretty or smart; I get that. But what do you think Harry sees in you? It can't be because your nice, because your not. It can't be because your cute, because your not. And it can't be because of your personality, because every time I talk to you I wish I were dead. And I've come so close to that. So why don't you do everyone a favour and throw yourself off a bridge or something? Because personally, it would be a much happier world for me if YOU WEREN'T IN IT." And as tears began to fall from her eyes, she stomped out of the room, past the 5 sheepish members of One Direction who had clearly been listening, and out of the house, now sobbing.

She didn't go far. Halfway across the front yard, she realized she had nowhere to go to. So she walked blindly around the house into the backyard, and across the yard to the long abandoned tree house. Scaling the rope ladder quickly, Evy sat down in the small wooden house, put her head on her knees and cried.

Eventually her tears dried up, and she found herself looking around the cubby house at all the memories surrounding her. There were little cups in the corner from when the used to play restaurant. And there were all the drawings they'd done stuck up on the wall. There was even still a small bloodstain in the corner from when Hayley had stood up too quickly when they were 10 and realized she'd grown 3 inches since the last time they'd came in here when she cracked her head on the roof. As if to acknowledge the pain from that, her arm gave a sudden pang of pain and Evy winced. Evy rolled up her sleeve and checked the bandage, hoping it wasn't still bleeding. Unfortunately it was, and quite liberally too. She was just wondering how she was going to change the bandage up here when a noise behind her made her freeze. A cute, Irish noise. Niall Horan.

"Whoa, what happened to your arm?" Evy began to stutter a response, but before she could Niall's eyes widened with realization.

"Did you cut yourself?"

Evy was about to lie, say she fallen over on a rock or something. She opened her mouth, but the words just wouldn't come out. She was sick of lying and hiding. So, for the third time that night, she burst into tears.

Almost instantly Niall's arms were around her, and she leaned into his shoulder, wrapping her good arm around his waist as her hugged her. As she sobbed, he stroked her hair and whispered consolingly in her ear.

"Shhh…shh, it's fine…it's fine, honey, it gets better, I swear it does…it's fine, let it all out…I know what it's like…"

Evy pulled away, hiccupping and rubbing her eyes. "What do you mean, you know what it's like?" she whispered. "You're a pop star, you have everything you want…right?"

Niall stared at her for a long, hard moment. Then sighing a scratching the back of his head, he said impassively "Let's just say I had a rough childhood before X-Factor and One Direction…well, it was a little rough starting out too…" he sighed again, then looked up, straight into her eyes. "Look, I've never told anyone this before, okay? Not even the lads. But, well…" he blushed, looking away. Then he continued. "I just feel like I can trust you. You seem like the most…_real_…person I've met since I became famous. Plus," he said with a little laugh, "Your gorgeous…and I don't lie to beautiful girls. But will you pinky-promise me you'll keep this between us?" he held out his left pinky expectantly.

This display of naïve trust, his faith that a pinky-promise couldn't be broken, made Evy give a small chuckle. But she wanted to honour Niall's faith, and so when she wrapped her pinky around his, she fully meant it when she said determinedly, "I promise."

He smiled as they undid their pinkies, but then quickly sobered up. Then with a deep breath, he rolled up the sleeve of his jumper and said quickly, as if he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, "I used to self-harm."

And he wasn't lying. Evy gasped at the state of his arm – it was even worse than hers, with more scars than she could count, and clearly deep too. "Why?" she whispered. "Why'd you do it?"

Niall exhaled again, running a hand through his hair. Evy waited patiently for him to speak, knowing this was very difficult to talk about.

"I'd just started high-school," he began finally, very softly. "And let me tell you, I wasn't the handsomest bloke about. And there were these three guys at my school. I can't even remember what I did to make them not like me, but from day one they were picking on me. My clothes, my face – I was the ugliest, most vile thing to them in every way imaginable. It was easy to ignore at first. I had a few friends and we'd just laugh at everything they said. But slowly, my friends started drifting away, and at the same time the bullies started being more physical with their attacks. Years later, I found out they threatened to beat up my friends if they kept being friends with me. But at the time, it felt like I'd been completely deserted.

It was terrible. I had no one to talk to at all; my parents spilt so I lived with my mum, and she worked really late hours. Most of the time I was asleep long before she got home. I'd come home to an empty house, after spending a day of being beaten up and told I was useless only to be alone with my thoughts again. I guess I got kind of destructive. I just come home and put on loud music and scream and throw things. And one day I broke a mirror. And I was just sitting in the wreckage of this broken mirror, and I picked up a shard, and I…" he faltered, looking at Evy apologetically. "You know…" she nodded sympathetically and squeezed his hand gently for support. He smiled slightly and continued.

"Well, that went on for almost two years. They'd bully me, I'd go home and cut myself, Mum didn't notice a thing. I think I might have ended my life if it'd gone on any longer. But then, something happened. A bus hit two of the bullies. They were killed instantly.

I'm not going to lie and say I mourned for them. In fact, I laughed when I heard. I know it's a terrible thing to do, but they made my life complete and utter hell for two years, and I nearly killed myself because of them." He looked up at Evy, as if seeking retribution for doing such a terrible thing. Evy patted his hand murmuring, "Don't look ashamed with yourself. I wouldn't have mourned for them."

Niall swallowed, looking a little like a weight had been lifted off his chest. His voice seemed stronger when he continued.

"Well, after they died my life got infinitely better. The final bully moved away, saying there were too many sad memories here now or something like that. I didn't care, I was just glad to see the back of him.

I made some new friends and I got my confidence back. I stopped cutting. I joined the school choir on a whim with some of my friends and discovered my singing voice. So when I was 17, I auditioned for X-Factor. The rest is One Direction history.

Like I said though, it was a bit rough starting out with One Direction too. I got so many horrible messages on Twitter from people saying I was too ugly to be in the band…and I made the other lads look bad…my singing sucked, my teeth made me look like a hillbilly, I didn't deserve my position in One Direction…it went on and on. I used to wait for everyone to be asleep in the X-Factor house so I could go to the bathroom and cut myself. It was like being in high school all over again.

"That went on for about a month until one day Louis caught me on my laptop crying and reading tweets from people saying those things. Then the lads all posted tweets saying to leave me alone and I had every right to be in the band as everyone else. So most of the haters all backed off, and things got better again. But the lads never found out how far it went. I hope they never do."

Niall looked up hesitantly, unsure of how Evy would react. Evy smiled gently, then leaned over and gave him a long, heartfelt hug. Niall hugged her back and feeling safe in her arms. He was glad he hadn't said that out loud, it felt very clichéd. He was disappointed when she pulled away, however.

Thank you for telling me all that," she said gently. "I know it was very personal and difficult to talk about." Then, to his surprise, she leant over and wiped a tear from his cheek. He hadn't even realized he'd been crying. He blushed and wiped his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said apologetically. "I came up here to comfort you and I ended up telling you my life story. But I want to help you, so will you tell me why you do it?"

Evy took a deep breath a nodded. Niall had been truthful to her in his story, so she would be truthful in hers.

"I've only ever had one boyfriend in my entire life," she began. "His name was Jared, and he meant the world to me. I thought we soul mates, I loved him so much. And I thought he felt the same. Maybe he did, I don't know. We had been dating for 9 months when it happened. He met Hayley and fell madly in love with _her._ The day after meeting her, he said he needed to talk to me. He said he wanted to break up with me. I asked why.

He said he'd chose _the wrong twin_. He said he hadn't realized how flawed I was until he saw me next to her. Hayley was so much more beautiful, so much funnier…he said he could see a future with her. He said he'd already asked her out, and she'd said yes. He said we were over. And that's when I started cutting.

"Needless to say, they dated for two weeks and broke up. But I still can't get his words out of my head. And from then on, all I couldn't stop noticing how much better Hayley was compared to me. When we graduated high school, she won the Dux, the Principal's Award and the Citizenship Award. I didn't win anything. Our classmates voted her Most Likely to Succeed. They voted me Most Likely to Go To Jail. We had an after-party at ours for the Leavers. Hayley hooked up with 3 guys at that party. I couldn't even talk to any of the guys. Our parents held a party a few months ago for their 20th wedding anniversary. The next day dozens of their friends phoned up to say what a beautiful and charming young lady Hayley was, and how disappointing it was that I couldn't be there. _I was walking around with Hayley the whole night."_

Tears began to well in Evy's eyes as she continued. "When I'm next to Hayley, people look straight through me. I'm utterly useless. I'm barely passing my journalism course at University because I can't pay attention and I'm always daydreaming about story ideas I can't even get onto paper. Hayley's been approached with 4 apprenticeships for when she leaves. I'm stupid and I'm ugly. I've only ever kissed one guy in my life. And he was the stupidest decision I've ever made. Hayley's right, there is nothing Jared could have seen in me. I'm…"

But before she could say another word, Niall leaned over put one hand on either side of her cheek and kissed her.

At first all Evy registered was shock, but slowly she began to kiss back. Niall, enthused by her response, slid his hands from her face, tangled one in her hair and trailed the other down her back. Evy pushed her hands through his hair too, and soon they were full on making out their tongues fighting for dominance. When they finally broke apart, they were both panting.

"There," Niall whispered. "Now you've kissed more than one guy. You're a regular whore."

Evy made a noise somewhere a laugh and a snort of disbelief. Niall took her silence and shocked expression as an opportunity to continue.

"Don't ever say those things about yourself again," he said seriously. "I can't even believe you think that about yourself. You are so beautiful. And then I heard you sing, and I felt a bit star-struck too. From what I've seen of you, you are the kindest, most compelling girl I've ever met. You're not stupid; you're unique and I like that about you. Girls these days just want to become something generic and smart sounding, but your going to be a writer and educate people. That's amazing in my eyes. _You're _amazing in my eyes."

Evy could barely believe her ears. It was the most compliments she'd ever received in her entire life. She was blushing like crazy. "Do you really believe that?" she whispered.

Niall grinned. "Every word."

Evy leant over and kissed him gently on the lips, then hugged him, leaning on his shoulder comfortably. And for the first time in a long while, Evy felt a glimmer of optimism. Maybe hope wasn't lost after all.


End file.
